Our Pedagogy
Born to Build. Built to Boss.
At MBA Junior, children learn entrepreneurship by doing it. From their very first term they run a real business, make something in every session and sell it to real customers.
What We Believe
Children can handle far more responsibility than school usually gives them. When a nine-year-old has a product, a price, a customer and a stall, they find out quickly whether their idea works.
We start young because these habits are easiest to build while the stakes are small. A venture that fails at ten costs a Saturday. The same lesson at thirty costs a great deal more.
What We Grow
Hardware
The knowledge a founder needs. Money and numbers, customers and markets, making and delivering a product, and using data to make decisions.
Software
The skills a founder uses every day. Selling, speaking, negotiating, leading a team, working with people who see things differently, and making decisions with incomplete information.
Heartware
The character a founder grows into. Integrity, empathy and the grit to keep going once an idea gets hard. We also encourage children to ask whether something should be built, as well as whether it can be.
Knowledge is the easiest part to teach from the front of a room, so many programmes focus there. We designed ours to develop all three.
How a Child Moves
Believe
Every year opens with Launchpad, where children explore who they are, what entrepreneurship means, who can help them and what they want to achieve. Everything else builds on a child believing they can make things happen.
Build
Term by term, children take an idea to a prototype and then to a customer. In Venture Lab they run their business and test what they have learned with real buyers.
Become
At the senior levels, students set their own direction, manage their own numbers and present their decisions to an outside audience.
What a Session Looks Like
2 Hours a Week
One hour of module content and one hour of Venture Lab.
80% Hands-On
At least four-fifths of every taught hour is spent with children working. This is written into every session plan.
A live business from the first term.
Each child's venture runs alongside their learning all year.
Guided by a facilitator.
While children work, our facilitators move between groups, ask questions and keep standards high.
Something made every session.
A plan, a prototype, a price list or a pitch, which goes into the child's portfolio.
A debrief at the end.
Every session finishes with protected time to talk through what happened, why it happened and what to change next week.
Real Business, Real Money
Real customers and real money
Every venture, at every level, sells a real product or service to real customers for real money. As children move up the levels, the amount of money involved grows, and so does their independence.
Students handle their own money, and our facilitators never hold a venture's takings. Selling takes place at our own venues or through supervised online channels, with written parental consent and a limit on money for each level.
Every venture raises a round
At the start of each year, every student raises an angel round. They work out how much money they need and what it is for, then ask family, or people the family approves, to back them. The programme itself does not invest, lend or hold any money.
Angels receive an agreed share of any profit. If the venture makes a loss, the angel loses their investment, as any investor would. The student negotiates the terms and writes them on one page signed by both sides, then settles up in person with their backer at the end of the year.
Learning from Failure
We give children honest feedback on their ideas. When something goes wrong, and it will, we work through it with the child straight away, using the same set of questions each time. This helps them find the lesson and carry on.
Plan
Build
Sell
Account
Reflect
Every student follows this same cycle, from age eight to seventeen. As they get older, the stakes rise and we expect more rigour.
Every Level Ends on a Stage
Twice a year, in June and December, each level holds a showcase day. Children run stalls and trade with the public from morning until close. During the day, each child also takes a turn on stage to talk about what they made, what they sold, what it cost and what they would change next time. We count the better of the two days, so a difficult first day never holds a child back.
Marketplace Day
Pop-Up
Day
Kids
Bazaaar
Venture
Market
Trading Showcase
Demo
Day
Outside Judges
Paying Strangers
Parents
Other Cohorts
Classmates
The audience grows more challenging at each level, and presenting to them is how we assess each child's progress.
How We Track Progress
We never rank or stream children against each other. Instead, each child builds a portfolio of their products, price lists, P&Ls, recorded pitches and a journal of what went wrong, which we assess against five criteria.
Idea
Numbers
Voice
Grit
Execution
Module checks
A short ten-question check at the end of each module, read aloud with pictures for our youngest students. We mark and return it promptly, and use it only to support your child's own learning.
Termly record
Each term you receive a report showing where your child stands on the five criteria, what they completed and how far their venture has come.
By the end of the programme, your child has a portfolio of real work to be proud of.
Tuition & MBA Junior Compared
A lesson at school
The teacher talks and the children listen.
Work is marked and handed back.
Success means finding the right answer.
Mistakes lose marks.
The teacher is the audience.
Children are ranked against the class.
A session at MBA Junior
Children spend most of the hour working, with a facilitator alongside them.
Work is sold, and customers decide its value.
Success means creating something new.
Mistakes are discussed in the same session and used to improve.
The audience includes strangers and grows every level.
Children are measured against their own work and progress.
What We Ask of Parents
Please come to the stage days, be part of the audience and help with materials, filming and logistics when we ask.
Beyond that, we ask you to step back. The idea, the build and the pitch need to belong to your child, and children can always tell when they don't.
Your child may ask you to invest. You are welcome to say yes or no, and finding another backer after a refusal teaches them just as much. If you do invest, you take on the role of an investor. You could lose the money, and the work remains your child's.
Our 4 Promises
Your child will spend most of every session doing, with short bursts of teaching.
Your child will get honest, useful feedback on every idea.
We will judge a venture by how well it was run, whatever it earned.
We will measure your child against their own progress, and never against other children.